Around 1.30pm this afternoon we finally were finished with our trip to the home improvement store and various other errands. It was time to get started on building the raised beds.
We decided to start with the bed across the way from the future greenhouse as it is the largest and most awkward one to build. Also, we only had to move the 3 meter boards, as the 4 meter boards are stacked towards the back
We are using 2×12’s for making the raised beds and got lucky enough the lumber yard had them in convenient sizes for us. We will still needed to use our saw on all four boards for some fine tuning but at least we won’t be wasting a ton of lumber. It also turned out we needed to fine tune the space already dug out and had to fill certain areas back in as the yard is quite slanted. But with all the soil that we dug out it wasn’t too hard to pack some stuff back into the paths.
Aside from using long wood screws on the outside (2 on each side) we also used 2 metal brackets per corner. This might be overkill but it makes us feel better to know our beds are held together from the inside and outside tightly.
Once we had fine tuned the soil for the frame to be level on the ground and running straight, it was really quite easy to place the wooden boards correctly. Definitely not quite as difficult as putting together the framing of the greenhouse. This bed won’t get the PVC piping around its perimeter for the cold frame because we will ultimately have some sort of statue or focal point in the center where we can’t easily reach. We’ve thought of breaking up the bed into two narrower beds but somehow this just seems better.
We also had a chance to install the first pipe for the Gardena irrigation systems. We just laid the pipe underneath the frame and cut it at the approximate length. We capped both of the ends to prevent dirt from entering the tube so it won’t clog the small sprinklers when we start using the system. All in all it looks like installation for the irrigation system should be a snap. Tomorrow morning we will pick up the piping we need for the well water pump system and the hose required to run water to the greenhouse.
After we had the frame assembled, we started filling up around the bottom of the bed and leveling out the dirt in the beds. Then we laid a layer of newspaper down to help kill the light to anything that wants to keep growing under there. Tomorrow we’ll go pick up 10 bags of dirt and start filling up the bed. At the moment it looks like we’re going to be needing a whole lot more dirt. Only four more to go. We hope to finish all of them by tomorrow evening so we can begin pouring the concrete for the greenhouse on friday.
